The walk from Babil to Kasr along the river bank takes one entirely among characteristic Babylonian scenery. Gardens, palms, and fields are sometimes all grouped together, forming a scene of rich luxuriance. It is, however, no more than a strip about 600 metres wide. For the first year after their planting the palms require regular watering, after that they grow of themselves and the roots of a fully grown tree are supposed to reach ground water. Gardens and fields must be watered, since we are in the almost rainless subtropical zone, and have scarcely 7 centimetres of downfall in the whole year. The canals are not directly available for the irrigation of the river banks as the level of the water rarely rises to their height. Here artificial elevators, the _djird_, are required. A huge leather bag is raised to the top of a short incline of about 30 grades by an ox, where its funnel end, closed during the ascent by a cord at the top, automatically empties itself into the irrigating channel. The cord on which the leather bag is suspended works over a cylinder supported on two projecting palm trees laid horizontally. Its rotation produces a resounding noise which penetrates the solemn stillness of the palm grove. Each djird possesses a characteristic melody of its own, to which the Arab attendant adapts his own song. These djirds are always under the shade of a mulberry tree, which is often of gigantic size (Fig. 9). The _na’ura_, the water-wheel so common on the upper Euphrates, is never used here as the stream is not sufficiently powerful. The _dolab_, a chain pump driven by a whim, is occasionally used, and the motor pump has been recently introduced by certain up-to-date farmers. It is clear that this continual watering, together with the shifting of the river and the flooding of the land, must raise the level of the ground, but it is difficult to estimate to what extent. Our only opportunity of observing it is among ruins, and there the process of elevation is, of course, far more rapid owing to the continual demolition of the buildings. In historical times, which we may here reckon as beginning with the invention of writing somewhere in the fourth millennium B.C., the measurable rise of the land has certainly been only slight. With regard to the totally unknown period of the prehistoric culture, it may safely be affirmed that the entire level of the land probably rose many metres. [Illustration: FIG. 9.—A djird, opposite Kweiresh. ] [Illustration: FIG. 10.—Arab at work on a canal, in the neighbourhood of Babylon. ] [Illustration: FIG. 11.—The hooked plough in Babylon. ]